798 Art Zone

Introduction

798 Art Zone is the center of the art scene in Beijing and is located at 4 jiuxianqiao street, Chaoyang District. Because of the centralization of several art studio and galleries the area is great to explore if you want to learn about Chinese contemporary art. Once a factory the industrial feel is still present and it is very easy to get lost among the small buildings and hanging pipes. Most of the galleries are open during normal business hours but on the evenings of openings there can be a late night party feel featuring free drinks. Sense the work is always changing it is worth coming anytime one is visiting Beijing.

History

The area occupied by Beijing 798 Art Zone was once the place for Beijing North China wireless joint equipment factory (namely, 718 Joint Factory), which was designed and built by the experts of former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in the 1950s. The Joint Factory was designed in 1952, constructed from 1954, put into production in October 1957. The designing task of the 718 Joint Factory was in the charge of a German architectural institution in Dessau, which lied in the same city with Bauhaus school at that time and they two shared the same architectural spirits whose main characteristics are meeting the practical demands; bringing the technical and aesthetic property of new materials and new structure into effect; designing simply and composing pictures vividly with flexibility. That is the genre what later called Bauhaus. In April 1964, the supervisor units cancelled the organizational system of 718, established 706, 707, 718, 797, 798 and 751. The former six factories of 700, 706, 707, 718, 797, and 798 were reorganized and incorporated into Beijing Sevenstar Science and Technology Co., Ltd in December 2000.

To cooperate the reforming plan of Dashanzi Area, the Seven Group rented out these plants for short term. Attracted by ordered designing, convenient traffic, unique style of Bauhaus architecture, many art organizations and artists came to rent the vacant plants and transformed them, gradually formed a district gathered galleries, art studios, cultural companies, fashion shops etc. As the earliest area where the art organizations and artists moved in located in the original area of 798 factory, this place was named as Beijing 798 Art Zone.